Dick Morris: Despite Media Narrative, Senate Races Leaning Republican
While the national media is rife with speculation that the 2018 midterm elections will be bad news for President Donald Trump, a poll of 250,000 registered voters released by Morning Consult indicates otherwise.
In state after state, a plurality of voters say that the Democrat incumbent senator does not deserve re-election and in half the states, the generic party ballot points to a Republican victory.
Since the Democrats have 26 states at risk (with Democrat or Democrat-leaning “independent” incumbents), while the GOP has only nine, this trend is very bad for Democrats.
Asked if the incumbent senator “deserves re-election,” voters in most swing Democrat states responded with a resounding “no!”
The inconvenient truth for Democrats is that they are likely to fall further behind in the Senate.
This will give Republicans something they have not had all year: a working majority.
Why the gap between journalistic perceptions of a GOP wipeout and the data showing likely Republican gains?
In part, of course, the gap is due to media bias.
But Trump’s job approval ratings have gone up in the past five months, from 37 percent in December to 43 percent at the end of April.
As usual, journalists and columnists are behind the curve.
But more generally, an anti-incumbent mood prevails throughout the land.
With so many more Democrats than Republicans up for re-election in Senate races, the trend is bound to work against the left.
Given the dismal ratings of these Democrat incumbents, they are likely to base their campaigns on negatives in the hopes of knocking their challengers off their game.
It will be a long season, but in all likelihood, there will be a happy ending.
Dick Morris is a former adviser to President Bill Clinton as well as a political author, pollster and consultant. His most recent book, “Rogue Spooks,” was written with his wife, Eileen McGann.
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